How have Africans perceived and overcome the global COVID-19 pandemic?
 
This book presents the research results of the three-year project “Exploration of Practical Wisdom and Resilience Overcoming Downside Risk – Collecting Grassroots Voices in Africa under COVID-19,” which was initiated in 2021.
 
This research project collected grassroots voices from Sub-Saharan Africa and explored how local people perceived and coped with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and government prevention policies on their daily lives.
 
This project covered seven countries: Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and South Africa.
 
Through in-depth field research conducted in collaboration with local researchers, we gathered the voices of local residents, which foreign studies often find difficult to obtain, and dynamically observed the process by which people recognize and overcome risks.
 
Chapter 1 sets the research questions, while Chapter 2 presents the findings from a common online questionnaire survey conducted in seven countries, revealing that economic distress is perceived as a greater risk factor than COVID-19. The case studies in Chapters 3 through 8 explore such diverse aspects as differences in risk perception between urban and rural areas (Zimbabwe), the politicization of infectious disease countermeasures (Uganda), youth “hustling” to overcome risks (Kenya, Tanzania), the role of the middle class in supporting societal resilience (South Africa), the impact of misinformation on vaccination practices (Ethiopia), and the impact of the pandemic and countermeasures on women’s self-esteem in conflict-affected areas (Congo).
 
This study contributes significantly to the literature by revealing that the effectiveness of government policies can be hindered by government politicization of COVID-19 prevention measures combined with people’s distrust of the government. In several countries, politicians have faced criticism for using government prevention measures to garner votes and favor the governing party in elections. Such biased policies decrease popular trust in government and can hinder preventive measures and vaccine dissemination. While rapid implementation of these measures is vital for preventing pandemics, policymakers should carefully consider them from the perspective of protecting vulnerable populations and guaranteeing human rights.
 
However, our survey revealed that people’s perceptions of the government and its policies are complex and multifaceted, often depending on the passage of time and the outcome of the policy. Moreover, ordinary people, seeking to survive, have improvised creative activities to maintain their livelihoods while navigating the containment measures. It is also essential to understand the sources of people’s resilience in times of hardship and to empower them with public assistance during regular times.
 
We highly recommend reading the manuscript.
 

(Written by HANAI Kazuyo, Project Assistant Professor, Institute for Future Initiatives / 2025)

Table of Contents

Related Info

SDGs Collaborative Research Unit
Exploration of Practical Wisdom and Resilience Overcoming Downside Risk
Collecting grassroots voices in Africa under COVID-19
https://ifi.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/projects/africa-under-covid19/
 
Events:
The 2nd Symposium of “Exploration of Practical Wisdom and Resilience Overcoming Downside Risk”　(SDGs Collaborative Research Unit, Institute for Future Initiatives (IFI), the University of Tokyo  Feb 9, 2024)
https://ifi.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/event/12316/
 
The 1st Symposium of “Exploration of Practical Wisdom and Resilience Overcoming Downside Risk”  (SDGs Collaborative Research Unit, Institute for Future Initiatives (IFI), the University of Tokyo  Feb 21, 2023)
https://ifi.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/event/10978/
 

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